In Memoriam: Paul Leighton

Paul Leighton.

Paul was Human, and a good one — his pure and forthright smile, mostly in his eyes, proved it.

By TIM CASTLE with help from DON SCHOENHOLT, on behalf of Paul’s colleagues and friends

His soft chuckle mercifully, but precisely, called to account our remorseless stupidities (mine, at least) and then asked “what’s next?”

Paul would let you forget, if you ever figured it out, how smart he was, but he’d sometimes call you on something… it often took me a couple years to sort out what he was laughing at, and then I’d laugh too, and call him… “Paul, I just got it…” I wish I could call him now.

Paul was first a husband, a father, and a friend. After that were his innumerable passions; in between was coffee.

Paul was born in Texas, his family still has land there. “Tiny” royalty checks from an oil well amused him.

Tough Texas land was the context for all the miracles Paul discovered: coffee, yes, but also, an Arabian horse, perfect manhattans, juicy steaks; and music, especially music — and that it could come from his own french horn in the Portland Opera’s Orchestra, the Eugene Symphony, and, on occasion, the Portland Symphony.  He took his moonlighting seriously and traveled with that horn (or at least the mouthpiece, adapting it to the horn at hand)… once serenading on a front porch to celebrate a new home; another time on a street corner in Berlin, impromptu with the St. Petersburg Horn Quartet.

Paul, with his partner, took over Coffee Corner in the late 70s and morphed it into a small “chain” before that was a thing.

He founded Cape Horn Coffees, Inc., years later, and took great pride in its success, and its future.

Paul worked with the Coffee Development Group in the early 1980s and then helped found the Specialty Coffee Association of America, becoming one of the SCAA’s first Presidents in 1986. 

Years later, Alfred Peet retired a few hours away and Paul would save up samples he thought “Mr. Peet” would like. Paul would report widely on those tastings and what he learned—he loved those cupping sessions and when Alfred left us, Paul established the Alfred Peet Award for quality in coffee.

Paul next wanted a more inclusive coffee trade—both in terms of race and gender, he wrote and spoke about this with friends earlier this year and would be working on that now.

But Paul’s happy obsession with coffee did not exclude the important stuff and he could be off before you knew it, recently, camping with his wife, Laura, and their young twins—a lot of work, but Paul didn’t mind work—he couldn’t tell it from play. Upon starting out in green coffee, selling 150,000 bags one early year gave him joy, the goal he set and achieving it.

Paul loved traveling and engaging with folks along the way—he wanted to flourish and learn. He went to thank the German man who donated the stem cells for his new bone marrow, that meeting was on the evening news, but not at Paul’s request.

Paul showed up for life—“if you’re not early, you’re late!” But Paul perhaps gave his heart too much to process and explore.

We miss Paul every day, by saying so, we include ourselves, but we do not identify any one of us, there are too many. I loved my best friend, Mr. Paul Leighton.